


The Moon and the Son

by russian_blue



Category: Hijo de la Luna - José Maria Cano
Genre: F/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 11:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/pseuds/russian_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tell me, silver moon -- what will you do with a son of flesh?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moon and the Son

The voice came from far below, rising ghost-like from the silvered shadows to break her quiet meditations. From sunset until dawn it spoke, with a passionate desperation she had not heard for many a long age.

"Oh please, I beg -- you _must_ hear my prayer. Surely I will die for love of him. Yet he does not know I live; I am far beneath the notice of such a man. What am I to do? Death would be a mercy, next to the pain I feel. Please, if ever you had pity on a wretch like me, answer me now. Tell me how I may have the man I love."

The speaker was a young woman, a lush bloom of youthful beauty. Her dark hair fell in a cascade of loose curls around a flawless face leached of its natural color by the moon's light, and her eyes were a liquid brown almost black. Beneath the simple dress she wore, her body was lithe and curved in a manner pleasing to men. Cheeks marked with the shining tracks of tears, she lifted her hands in supplication, and the strength of her passion carried her plea into the heights of the sky.

The moon examined her with distant interest. Many long years had passed since a mortal had drawn her notice. The beauty of the young woman moved her not at all; young women came and went, even as the moon revealed and then hid the silver features of her face. But the fire of her heart -- ahhhh, that was a lure whose power never failed. The tides of sentiment were the moon's power and amusement both.

And so she did what she had not done for many a long age: she drew closer to the earth, shedding more of her delicate light on the petitioner, and spoke.

"I can make this man love you, dark-haired one," she said, and saw the woman tremble in awe at the sound of her voice. "His heart will answer to my call. But will you pay the price?"

The woman drew a ragged breath and thought. Hope glimmered in the pools of her eyes, now, and the moon, watching the ebb and flow of her heart, knew what her answer would be.

"I will," she whispered, her voice now soft, but still intense enough for the moon to hear. "I cannot live with this pain, not having him at my side. Name your price, O moon, and I will pay it; only give me your aid."

The moon had no need for thought before answering. The subject of her meditations for all these long ages, her desire was never far from her thoughts. And now, at last, it would be hers.

"Give me the son you will bear him," she said.

For the first time, devotion and will faltered in the woman's eyes. "My -- my son?" she stammered, her voice weakening, falling lower in the sky.

"Your son," the moon repeated. "The first you bear."

"I . . . ." the woman whispered, barely audible now.

"And you will have your man," the moon said, her voice yet silver and smooth. "If you love him so much, then he will be enough for you; you will not need a son. And you could not love your son so much, if you would give him up to me. Therefore you will lose little, and gain much."

Slowly, the dark curls falling forward to veil her face, the woman lowered her head. When she responded, though, her voice was strong once more, strong with the certainty of her love.

"As you wish."

***

The man walked beneath the light of the full moon not long after, when she reigned in her glory over the length of the night. He was on his way to his sweetheart -- another woman, less beautiful but more suited to his status -- but as he went he caught a glimpse of the woman, seated beneath the gentle drape of a willow. Her beauty enraptured him; all thougths of his sweetheart were lost; they married not long after. They consummated the marriage outside, in the moonlight. Afterward, the woman's belly grew steadily rounder as the moon waxed and waned.

The moon watched them ceaselessly, even questioning the village cats on the lives the two lived beyond her eyes. The cats answered or not, according to their whims, only whetting her curiosity. For all that human hearts answered to her power, their workings were opaque to her; she understood what they did, and how, but never why. She put love in the heart of the man, but what did it mean? Since the dawn of time she had watched human passions, pondering their mysteries, forever on the outside. Now, at last, she would understand.

Conceived on a full moon, the boy was born under the same radiant light. The midwife kept the woman indoors, but her screams of effort rose into the sky, where the moon waited with anxious hope. Soon enough a second voice joined hers, thin and pure, the wail of an infant thrust from his warm safety into a cold and alien world.

The whispers ghosted upward, too, soft but full of worry. At last the whispers died away into silence, and there was nothing; the man was gone from home, traveling to another town for trade, and knew nothing as yet of the birth.

And the moon waited, but did not see the son.

***

Now the moon begrudged the celestial cycles that took her from the sky, conceding the heavens to the much brighter sun. Every moment she spent away was a moment she could not watch over the house where the son must surely lie.

Nearly a full cycle passed before the man returned. The moon rose in the late afternoon, ghostly in the departing sunlight, and watched unblinking. She saw his broad shoulders and dark head vanish into the house, and then she waited, alone. Where was the son she had been promised?

From inside the house came his voice, puzzled at first, then steadily more angry. The woman's answers came halting and false, telling him neither the truth, nor a lie he could believe. Pain laced both their tones: distrust, betrayal, a tangle of hurt that cut away at the love that bound them together. On it went, as the sun sank and the moon rose higher, until at dusk the door slammed open, and the man came out, hand buried in the woman's hair, and her carrying a bundle the moon strained to see.

He dragged her to the town's central square, and a crowd gathered to hear.

"I travel from this town to earn money to support my family," he said, his voice thick with rage and tears. "I have been a good husband. But in my absence, my wife betrayed me. She has lain with another man, and born him a son that surely is not mine."

The townspeople watched at a fearful distance, for in the fading light of dusk, a knife glimmered in his free hand, and the madness in his eyes said he would use it.

The woman wept, near-soundlessly, all her protests spent.

"I will not be a cuckold," the man said. "I will not be so betrayed. I will not let this crime pass unanswered."

And, reaching down, he tore the bundle from her arms, and the knife flashed once in the dying light.

***

The townspeople let him pass as he departed from the square, leaving behind the dark huddle that had once been his wife.

They let him return to his house, and leave it not long after with a large bundle on his back and a smaller one in his arms.

They let him walk from the town, heading into the rocky hills that surrounded them. Alone save for the burden he carried, the man climbed those hills, going all unknowing to the crag from which the woman who loved him had once beseeched the moon for aid.

On a flat rock he set the smaller of his bundles, and stood looking at it for a long, heartbroken moment, before turning and going away.

Drawing near to the earth once more, the moon saw at last her promised gift.

The infant in the wrappings was pale as she, his skin milk to the cinnamon complexions of the man and the woman. His hair glimmered like starlight, and his eyes were a clear, perfect grey.

Radiant with joy, the moon smiled down upon her son. Now, after ages of longing, she would learn what love was. She would care for her son, and he would love her in return. She was a mother.

The son began to cry, a thin, hopeless sound against the cold stone of the hills. But there was no one to hear him, no one to comfort him, save the serene and uncomprehending moon.

**Author's Note:**

> When I first wrote this story, I thought "Hijo de la Luna" was a Spanish folksong; it has a lot of that feel to it, especially with the ending that says when the son cries, the moon shrinks down to a crescent to form a cradle for him. It turns out to have been written by José Maria Cano, though -- possibly for the band Mecano, but I credit him as the songwriter because I'm not sure what the order of events was there. (I'm most familiar with the version sung by Sarah Brightman.)
> 
> Anyway, once I turned it into a story, the happy ending with cradles and all didn't seem as much in the cards. :-) The chorus asks repeatedly, "Tell me, silver moon -- what will you do with a son of flesh?," and I don't think the answer to that would be a good one.


End file.
